


Persimmons and Jujubes

by onepercent



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drabble, Fairies, Forests, M/M, Mermaids, They live in a forest its great, because im that kind of person i guess, detailed descriptions of fruit, pre exr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onepercent/pseuds/onepercent
Summary: Grantaire is just a mermaid bored out of his mind who gets a kick out of antagonizing the fiesty blond across the river.





	Persimmons and Jujubes

**Author's Note:**

> I had a really bad experience the other night. It was a lot of me crying and beating myself up about everything, but naturally E and R came to my rescue! I really enjoy writing about nature, and they’ve clearly weaved their way pretty deep in my heart, and writing this really helped cheer me up afterwards. I hope you enjoy reading it!

The forest was quiet but for the everpresent hum of bumbling honeybees and the in and out of his breath. Grantaire oft prefered it to the sounds of the water, rushing behind his ears and knocking pebbles into each other at the bottom of the river like clinking silver coins. When the constant flow of the stream got too much, he liked to sit like this, lying lazily on the cool, black-soil bank with only his tail floating up and down in the current like a bobbing-apple in a barrel at a human-child’s birthday party. Humans were loud, but never came so far into the forest. Not even the wind would dare whisper through the dense underbrush and tangled trees, their thick leaves a warm quilt above his head, and the steely fall sky its cloudy lace embroidery.

Grantaire watched it all with mild interest. This was a new part of the forest he had only been to a few times before, as he had distractedly swum a little farther than usual and this was where he ended up—farther upstream: shallower, but the trees around it bloomed more beautifully, and the shells were more colorful and smooth to collect. The ground was soft and damp, and it was too early in the season for the leaves to fall in clusters and be a nuisance. He decided firmly that he liked it here.

He leaned forward and dipped a webbed hand in the cool stream, scrubbing a little to remove some of the juice that he had accidentally spilled from his mid-day snack. Persimmons and jujubes grew wild here, and low enough for Grantaire to grab fresh off the tree. He delighted in them like candies, as reflected by his hands and face stained with juice and stomach full of sticky-sweet syrup. He would surely catch some fish or crab to bring back to his den for a proper meal later, but he let himself indulge for now.

As he washed his hands, his reflection looked back at him through the mirror of the water. His black hair swirled with the current and his olivine skin became an illusion of blurred moss underneath the surface. Behind him, the fiery trees winked like the sparkling golden scales of a ray-fin in the summer. Across from him, a shadow shimmered in the water.

Grantaire looked up. In front of him was a man. His skin was brown like the bark of the fig trees that grew along the bank, and his hair was white-yellow like the glittering sunlight filtering through the branches above them. He was dressed in handmade reds to mimic the vibrant autumn leaves. He could pass easily as human if not for his eyes—huge, byzantine-blue irises, shattering the light refracted from the river with blazing glaucous intensity. He was clearly a forest fairy, and an angry one that that, if his steely frown was anything to go by.

“You can’t eat those,” he said. Grantaire, a little more than entranced by his intense gaze, had to follow the pointing of the man’s finger to the small pile of fruits and pits next to Grantaire on the shore. Grantaire, simply to be contrary, picked one up and took a bite out of it, juice dribbling down his chin, its sweet, ripe flesh melting in his mouth as he chewed. The man tracked his movements with a stern eye, and squinted at his throat when Grantaire swallowed.

“And why not?” asked Grantaire a little smugly, peeling back the skin of the fruit absently with a sharpened nail and sucking on it as he waited for an answer. The man opposite him blushed—forest fairies were notoriously quick to fluster to go along with their quick tempers, and Grantaire delighted in that fact—but continued to speak.

“It’s mine,” said he. “You can’t have any without asking.”

“Why not?” said Grantaire to annoy him.

The fairy’s thick eyebrows furrowed and he crossed his arms. “Because I own it,” he explained, exasperated. “I made it bear fruit, so you can’t have any without my permission.” Ah, Grantaire had forgotten about that. Forest fairies take care of the plants in areas where the bees or birds don’t naturally live. That’s probably why this particular area was so lush—the beautiful red fairy in front of him pollinated all of it himself where the butterflies couldn’t reach. How compassionate, thought Grantaire. Mermaids like him couldn’t do anything cool, unless one classified swimming around and avoiding humans as “cool”, which Grantaire definitely didn’t.

“Why not?” said Grantaire for the third time. He reached up and plucked another fruit down from a low-hanging branch and tossed it into his pile. “You’re not even over here to protect your precious fruits. I can have however many I want with you all the way over there.”

The fairy huffed. “Just because I’m not over there doesn’t mean they cease to be mine. It’s the basic law of ownership—“

“Ownership shmownership,” said Grantaire childishly. “We’re not humans, so don’t try and play like it, fairy boy. Finders keepers as far as I’m concerned,” he finished with a shrug. He let his tail slide a little further into the clear water before he slid all the way back in himself because his skin was getting a little dry, out in the air. He rested his back against the sharply sloping riverbank, looking up into the fairy’s blue eyes.

“Be serious,” insisted the fairy, clearly frustrated by Grantaire’s responses. “Humans aren’t the only ones who should have some semblance of order and civility around here—“

Grantaire scoffed. “As if that’s done them any good. Where are the humans now, but lost in their own inventions? They’ve got whosits and whatsits but nothing to show for it but a farce called civilization, fairy boy. I am wild, and so are you. Nature’s got no rules, so I think I can go on eating your beloved fruit for as long as I want…” He took a bite. The fairy’s face was quickly growing pink in anger, and he looked about ready to blow a fuse. Grantaire interrupted him before he could even say anything. “...that is, unless you’d like to come over and eat with me. There’s no way to reattach what I’ve already taken, and it’s no use to let it go to waste, hm?”

The fairy blinked and his temper dimmed, and he looked at the mermaid suspiciously for a few moments, surely over-analyzing his offer, before cautiously wading through the river to the other side. The water was relatively shallow at this end, but the fairy still had to roll up his shorts so not to get them wetted by the bubbling current, which was, for some reason, very cute to Grantaire, though he took care not to show it. The fairy sat down daintily next to Grantaire on the bank, only his tanned feet in the cool stream. Grantaire passed him a jujube, and he took it, obviously conflicted between being angry at this random fishman who came and stole his food and being thankful that he was at least kind enough to share it.

“I’m Grantaire,” said Grantaire after a few moments of silence. The bees continued to stir somewhere out of sight, and the fairy chewed quietly and cleanly, somehow managing not to spill juice everywhere, unlike Grantaire, whose sharp teeth and pointy nails made eating anything a mess.

“I’m Enjolras,” said the fairy, looking deep into the water as if it were magic. Maybe it was, mused Grantaire as they ate in harmony.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are my life source. If you liked it, please don’t be shy to leave one, or the other, or both, if you feel so inclined!
> 
> edit 5/26/18--got bored and added some art lol


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